Right. So. Arc Divider.

Call this critique, complaints, or whatever.

I have been playing zerker pretty regularly before the patch. I usually spend my downtime playing unorthodox or unviable builds to see if I can coax them into some kind of workability, and have been having pretty decent success with power zerker. however, to do so I've always had to very meticulously manage my cooldowns, especially my burst, in order to regularly win versus some classes, and some matchups were just downright losses.

With the new patch and the zerker rework, I find that the new playstyle is (obviously) a stark departure from my old one, and that Arc Divider in particular now handles matchup elements that originally were bad against berserker and core war.On the one hand, I am significantly disappointed by the loss of toughness, stability, burst lvl 1-3 and its traits being unproccable until zerk, and the way all of that has been shoved into a short range aoe.On the other hand, people that don't manage to exploit that sudden sustain drop (of which zerker had very little to begin with mind you) go down much faster than I am accustomed to. Whether that is because they are not accustomed to dodging arc or not remains to be seen but-

I can't remember the last time I've seen a move on zerker actually hit for a significant amount of damage without needing to land a stun prior. it feels... incorrect, to put it mildly. At the same time, if it gets its damage reduced to the point that players are allowed to live through facetanking all of the hits on a non tank amulet, zerker would at that point be significantly worse than it was originally, because it will have no significant damage output until adren is full, at which point damage output will become mediocre in exchange for additional fragility.

That being said, I see the latter development to be par for the course here.

So I'm calling this right now, arc divider is gonna take a moderate-heavy damage nerf to placate the people that can't dodge big red circles, and then it will be significantly worse than it was before because, in addition to mediocre damage, it will have lost access to burst skills and the traits that proc on burst, a significant amount of stability, toughness, and adrenaline.

I may be at this time poisoned by cynicism after playing zerker while it was unviable, but I just feel like I needed to shout that into the void of the forums. I'm not used to having a single button that does so much, and I also am concerned that if it gets removed I will have to struggle even harder than previously just to survive vs any class.

If you're going to do anything to Arc Divider, Arenanet devs, please consider that you also removed all of the sustain from berserker and put some of that back when you do.

K Thanks~

I think Berserker is more or less where it needs to be sPvP-wise.At worst, maybe lower the final swing's range from 480 to 360 on both swings, but as you said, you give up toughness and most meaningful pressure (except Rampage, which will likely be seen to later as its own issue) outside of that form by just taking Berserker in the first place. Even the activation of Berserk can be blocked/dodged/blinded to nullify Berserker's Power/Adrenal Health effects when they transform to cuck their initial output, too. Its big and scary right now as a shock to the meta, but I think people will adapt to it in time.

I've been playing zerker for a few months now in WvW and despite it not being the best choice or meta by any means it has been a ton of fun. I was really excited for the patch and it seemed to put zerker in a good place, but you are probably right. Hopefully they at least wait it out a bit before they hit it with any sort of nerf that takes away the damage that zerker traded all its sustain for.

Arc Divider is the carry mechanic on Berserker right now. Its like the only thing they did to Berserker that is actually pretty nice. Outside of that one trick pony moment...the rest of the rework is terrible.

Only two ways I can see them nerfing this. Nerfing the damage on Arc Divider(duh), or they cut Burst Precision's value in half in Spvp. Atm the build really goes all in offense, it's practically a PVE build.

It's actually sad that a class that aoe crits for 25k on crusader amulet is actually "fine" and would be completely trash if it's dmg gets lowered. Perfect example of current powercreep.

Berserker is trash, straight up. Arc Divider is the ONLY saving grace. You really only need to buff that and not gut the entire berserker spec if more damage was the plan. OP, I will agree with you. Arc Divider is going to get nerfed and gutted and berserker will have NOTHING to provide in pvp. As a pve spec though, it's great!